[The irrational patient]

A patient obstinately refusing medical prescriptions is often defined irrational. The conflict among the doctor and the patient is in this case unavoidable, and easily becomes ideological, both the doctor and the patient trying to win the battle. In a therapeutical relation however the aim is not the victory of the scientific reason but the patient health. A doctor with counselling and communication skills can work with and not against the patient and find a common round where disease (clinical truth) and illness (patient's truth) meet each other. This is the partnership, that is the opposite of the conflict.